About

Built, not given.

I’m Chris. Army veteran, kinesiologist by degree, trainer by trade. When you read my book, you’ll see why three habits kept me steady when nothing else did: how I move, what I eat, and what I choose to focus on. Those three are what this site is about.

Physical training was a requirement in the Army. It turned into the thing that kept me grounded through every version of chaos. I scored high on the PT tests, I was always in the gym, and leadership pushed me to get certified. So I did. A few chapters into that manual I hit the definition of kinesiology, the science of human movement, and realized something bigger than a certification: exercise was forcing me to be happy no matter what else was going on. I wanted to know why. That’s what sent me to school for it, in Long Beach, living in Venice Beach.

Why this site is free

Here’s the thing I keep coming back to. The information that changed my life was handed to me for free. An Army PT schedule. A manual somebody told me to read. Professors who explained the why instead of just handing over the answer. None of it cost me anything but attention.

Most people never get that. They get a paywall, a program they can’t afford, or advice that’s really an ad. The people who need this the most are usually the ones with the least to spend on it. I was one of them.

So everything here is free. The calculators, the recipes, the Journal. Not free for now. Not free with an upsell waiting behind it. Free, on purpose, because knowledge shouldn’t be gate-kept behind money.

The site stays alive another way: a small shop, ads once there’s traffic to justify them, and donations from people who got something out of this and want the next person to get it too. A share of what comes in goes further than the site, to disabled and homeless veterans and to kids who didn’t get a fair start.

The last few years settled it for me. Everything that happened, the losses included, pointed the same direction: the book and this website are my first major steps toward trying to make the world a better place. The book so the record is the record. The site so the knowledge that pulled me out is free to the next person.

That’s the deal. You get the work. I get to keep giving it away.

The book

Built, Not Given is the memoir behind all of this: growing up on harder terrain, the Army, college, and the years of building and rebuilding. It’s in editing now. The Founder’s Edition goes live when it’s ready for print. About the book →